An Australian Lassie Part 18

And it must be confessed that she liked the thought of two waifs facing the world together, very much better than one.

She was not at all disturbed (when it was over) about the interview with her grandfather. It had not, like its predecessor, sent her to bed weeping and ashamed and resolved upon the expediency of "turning over a new leaf."

She had been vexed that her grandfather had had so short a sleep--and that John had not given her warning of his approach--as he had promised to do.

And she was very much distressed to find she had left her pink bonnet behind her. Her mother had discovered its loss when giving out the week's clean one, and had insisted upon her searching every corner in the house for it.

"It's was Dot's," said Mrs. Bruce. "Dot never lost a bonnet in her life.

You will have done with bonnets soon, but yours will do for Nancy. I expect you left it at school, you tiresome child."

It certainly would have electrified Mrs. Bruce if her small daughter had confessed to her bonnet's whereabouts. But Betty's sc.r.a.pes were many and various at this period of her life, and it never entered into her head to tell them to her mother, who was absorbed in her garden and her books, nor to her father, who was supposed to be always "thinking stories."

So Betty ran to school with her clean bonnet tucked under her arm, after promising that she would "try to bring the other one home with her."

Her mind was now at rest upon her future "career." She had quite determined to be a second Madam S---- with this sole difference in their lives--Madam S---- faced the world at _her_ street corner at the age of eight, and Betty was not beginning till she was "twelve and a bit."

Still, she had a few worries.

She was worried over John--lest he should have gone and left her; and she was worried over the great question, "What song to sing?" as many singers have been before.

She had thought of "G.o.d save the Queen," but the words did not fulfil all requirements, while "Please give me a penny, sir"--that song she had found among a heap of yellow old ones with her mother's name--maiden name, Dorothea Carew--upon them, seemed to have been written just for the occasion. The only pity was, that whereas Betty knew "G.o.d Save the Queen" perfectly, "Please give me a penny, sir" was almost a stranger to her.

She had learnt a verse of it on Sat.u.r.day night when she ought to have been doing her arithmetic; and on Sunday evening she had coaxed her mother to the piano, and begged her to sing "_just_ this one song, _please_." Her mother sang very prettily--like Dot--and she had thrown a good deal of pathos into the old song, so that Betty's ambition was fired, and she had _almost_ decided upon the song straightaway.

This morning she arrived at school flushed and hot, before either Cyril or Nancy, and she began at once to explore the playground for John Brown the artist. Two little lines of boys and girls were playing a sober game of French and English away under the gum trees, and Betty ran her eyes along the lines--but no John Brown was there.

Two boys were skirmis.h.i.+ng just behind the cloak-room, but neither of them was John Brown. Five were playing "leap frog," but John Brown was not there. One sat on the doorstep learning a lesson, but that was only Artie Jones.

Then a motley crowd of boys and girls came trailing in at the gate, and the bell began to ring.

Betty drew into the shadow of the new wing, the "Babies' Wing," and scanned the new arrivals eagerly.

Fat Nellie Underwood gave her a bunch of jonquils and fell into line to march into the schoolroom. Minute Hetty Ferguson begged to be allowed to do her hair in the dinner-hour. "_Please_, Betty dear," she urged. But Betty was looking for John and did not heed.

Cyril was there and grumbling. He was pus.h.i.+ng a boy who had pushed him, and pressing his lips together as he pushed, when, all at once, he saw Betty, and left the field to the other boy.

"You're going to catch it, Betty Bruce!" he whispered. "You'll just see!

I'm going to tell of you when I go home. Teach you to sneak off to school by yourself."

But Betty's eyes were looking past Cyril, looking for a squarely built figure in grey.

Cyril drew nearer. "You never washed up the porridge plates," he said.

"I found them in the dresser cupboard. An' the knives an' forks. An'

baby's basin. I'll tell of you."

Then he fell into line and carried his fair pretty face into the schoolroom, where Miss Sharman patted his cheeks when he went to present a little bunch of Czar violets to her.

Miss Sharman presided over Cla.s.s A for grammar upon Mondays and Thursdays, and Cyril, who was but very weak on adverbs and prepositions, always gave her a sweet-smelling nosegay to begin the day with.

And Miss Sharman had a very tender spot in her heart for pretty Cyril, where she had none for scapegrace Betty. She had doctored Cyril for bruises, had washed his face in her own room and brushed his wavy hair; had kissed him, and given him cakes, and acid drops, and bananas. And although these small sweet matters were just between Miss Sharman and Cyril--their influence might be felt upon grammar days.

Nancy came into school crying--crying noisily. She was rubbing her eyes with one hand, a moist dirty hand, and leaving her face the worse for the contact.

The master inquired sternly what was the matter, and called her to his side. And Nancy told him sobbingly that she "fort she was late, an' now she wasn't." And he patted her head so kindly that the little maid lowered her sobs at once and finally let them die away in an occasional hiccough of sorrow.

Betty came in at last. She had run as far as the store and back again in search of John Brown--and had found him not. She felt quite certain now that he was away practising his genius upon some wall in the great world.

When she came into the schoolroom her face was red with running and excitement, her hair was rough, and her bonnet under her arm still, so oblivious was she to the things of this very every-day and commonplace world.

"Elizabeth Bruce, what is that you have under your arm," Miss Sharman inquired, as Betty walked to her place, which was somewhere in the second form.

Betty looked in surprise--and there was her bonnet. She had to walk out and hang it up, while the cla.s.s, and even the babies t.i.ttered at her blunder.

But there in the cloak-room she found John Brown. He was in the act of hanging his hat upon his own particular peg--the highest one in the room.

"Oh!" said Betty, "_here_ you are!"

"You're a nice one," said John Brown.

"What have I done?" asked the little girl eagerly.

But John Brown simply looked his scorn, and it made his face very ugly indeed.

"Oh, what _have_ I done?" begged Betty. "Do tell me."

"Trust a girl to mull things up," said John.

"Elizabeth Bruce, return to your cla.s.s," said a stern voice from the schoolroom, and Betty shot herself back through the door in the twinkling of an eye.

A lengthy s.p.a.ce of valuable time was given over to moods and tenses, perfects, pluperfects, pasts, futures; and Betty, whose fort.i.tude was much shaken by John Brown's remarks, sat listlessly five places above him, caring not the least about such mighty words as "cans" and "coulds" and "shalls" and "shoulds," although the air was full of them.

She went down a place, through not being able to find a pa.s.sive participle for the verb "to bid," Miss Sharman shaking an angry head at her eager "bidded." And she went down two for knowing nothing of the present tense of "slain."

That brought her one place removed from John Brown, and all her eagerness now was to go one lower and learn at once wherein lay her offence.

So, although she knew perfectly that the verb "to fall" had "fell" for its past participle, she uttered an eager "failed" and sat next to John Brown.

"Disgraceful!" said Miss Sharman. "You could not have opened your book, Elizabeth (which was only too true). Your little sister Nancy, in the babies' cla.s.s, could have told you that."

But Elizabeth saved herself with the verb, "to sing," and sat uneasily in case John should blunder over "to fight." But he was quite correct and did not need his small neighbour's eager whisper.

And then Miss Sharman pa.s.sed on to other verbs and other pupils, and John and Betty were left in peace, side by side, outwardly two indifferently intelligent pupils, inwardly perplexed, distressed and elated by their new ambition.

"What have I done?" whispered Betty.

"Silly!" whispered John.

"But--what _have_ I done?"